Video: Using the Warp effect

One of the easiest ways to apply distortion effect to your artwork inside of Illustrator is using the live effect called Warp. Now warp is a very straightforward effect. I'll show you how it works. There are many different settings but most importantly, in order to get the most out of this effect, you will need to pay attention to have you build your artwork. So let me give you an example. I'm working in a file here called warp.ai. I'm going to click on this particular text object right here. Next, I'll go to the Effect menu and I'll choose Warp. You will see that 15 different options appear over here. It really doesn't make a difference which one of these you choose.

Covering a wide range of topics, from advanced masking to chart creation, Illustrator CS4 Beyond the Basics reveals a whole new level of power, creativity, and efficiency with Illustrator. Instructor Mordy Golding explores how to work with Live Paint groups, get the most out of the Live Trace feature, and take advantage of Illustrator’s wide range of effects. He also discusses advanced transformation techniques, powerful 3D functionality, and important color concepts. Exercise files accompany the course.

Using the Warp effect

One of the easiest ways to apply distortion effect to your artwork inside ofIllustrator is using the live effect called Warp. Now warp is a verystraightforward effect. I'll show you how it works. There are many differentsettings but most importantly, in order to get the most out of this effect, you will need to pay attention to have you build your artwork.So let me give you an example. I'm working in a file here called warp.ai. I'm going to click on this particular text object right here. Next, I'll go to theEffect menu and I'll choose Warp. You will see that 15 different options appearover here. It really doesn't make a difference which one of these you choose.

I am actually going to choose its Arc one and you will understand why in amoment. The Warp Options dialog box appears. With the Preview button, we cansee basically what it looks like, but most importantly, where it says Styleover here, I have a pop-up menu that gives me those same 15 options.So no matter which one I choose, I'm always being able to switch them up when Iget here into this dialog box. I find it a little bit easier to choose themfrom here anyway because they are broken up into sections. Notice here you havefour different sections based on the type of warp they actually apply. You'll notice in the left side here, there are these icons that really help youidentify the type of distortion that's going to be applied with each of these effects.

For now, I'll just choose the Arc option right over here. You have the optionto apply either Horizontal or Vertical distortions. You will also notice there is a slider here that allows you to specify how much of the distortion you want to apply.Now in reality, these Warp Options, they will be called canned effects. They are preset. You really can't go beyond the settings that appear inside of thedialog box here. If you want to have some kind of specific distortions, we'll see later there is another feature inside of Illustrator called Envelops.But for here, I can go ahead and choose these particular sliders here. Let me go back to Horizontal, to a Bend of around 30%. Then you can also choose fordifferent distortions in that particular warp, for example Horizontal.

That just weights it more to one side. Notice over here, it kind of squeeze out this way. So I can choose to distort them horizontally and vertically as well.So you can also achieve some interesting effects by using these particularsliders that are here. I'm just going to reset these back to 0 and I'll clickOK to apply it. Now remember one of the most important things about anythingthat appears as a live effect inside of Illustrator is the fact that they canbe captured and saved as a graphic style. Maybe that you can basically applythose easily to multiple objects inside of Illustrator. But in this case, I applied that warp just to a simple text object.

Now let's take a look at something else. I actually have this badge here. If Igo ahead and I highlight this whole thing right here, you can see it's made upof many different elements, but I have not grouped these elements. It remainsin an ungrouped state.Now as we know when we apply a live effect to objects, the live effect getsapplied to each object individually, unless I'm dealing with a group. In thatcase, my target becomes the group and Illustrator applies the effect that I'mtrying to apply to the group and not to the objects inside of the group. Nowbecause they don't have a group here, if I were to apply any kind of a warpeffect right now, they would all get applied to the individual objects that arein my selection. So we'll see exactly how that works.

I am going to go over here, back to the Effect menu. I'm going to choose Warpand then I'll choose again just the Arc one. I always choose the first one justbecause I don't have to scroll down the rest of the list. Click on the Previewbutton and notice how the distortion is actually applied to each objectindividually.If I go ahead and I choose another one, for example, the Flag one, you can seethat each of the objects are getting this distortion effect that being appliedto it. If I just want this a little bit more dramatic here, you can really seehow the text here is being distorted on its own, this text is being distortedon its own, the shapes certainly are being distorted on its own, as overallthis entire shape as well.

So I'm not getting the effect that I'm really looking for. So I'm going toclick on the Cancel button. When I'm working with multiple objects and I wantto treat them as if they were one object, I need to group them together. So nowI'll go to the Object menu and I'll choose Group. Now as a group, I can chooseagain the Effect and I'll go ahead and I'll choose Warp. Now you will noticethat when I apply the warp setting, it does apply to the entire group as awhole, as if the entire group was one object.Let's go back to that Flag one, for example. Let's slide that back, so it's notthat dramatic but let's say something like this. Click OK and now I haveapplied the distortion to this. Now remember, any time I apply a warp to anyobject inside of Illustrator, I'm applying it as a live effect. That means thatI can always click on the object, in this case, the group, and open up myAppearance panel. I can see that warp effect and if I don't like it, I caneither click on it to edit it, or I can simply drag it to the trash can toremove that particular effect.

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